Golden Tide Split Doubleheader With Brockway

CURWENSVILLE – The Curwensville Area High School baseball team split a doubleheader Monday with visiting Brockway, winning the first game 5-3 and dropping the second contest 5-4 on a controversial call.

GAME – 1

The Tide struck first in the opening contest with Tanner Elensky leading off in the bottom half of the first inning with a double and scoring on a one out sacrifice fly to center by Alex Olson.

Brockway tied the game 1-1 with a run in the top half of the second. A score that would hold until Curwensville pushed three runs across in the bottom of the fourth frame to take a 4-1 margin.

A double by Olson, singles by Brett Gardner, Ricky Magnuson and Travis Lansberry, along with a Rover throwing error, enabled the Tide to take back the lead for good.

Brockway would make it close, (4-3), once again with two runs in the top of the fifth inning but Curwensville came back in the bottom of the inning to pick up an insurance run.

Elensky had three hits for Curwensville and Johns picked up his third win of the year.

Andrew Serafini had three hits for the Rovers, one being a double. Brett Carr also smacked a double for Brockway in the loss.

The Rovers also left an incredible 15 runners on base, including leaving the bases loaded in the first, third and seventh innings.

Curwensville was the visiting team in game two as a result of the game at Brockway being rained out earlier in the season.

In the nightcap Brockway quickly took a 4-0 lead after the first two innings before the Golden Tide knotted the game with four runs in the top half of the fourth inning.

Three Tide singles, from Brett Gardner, Alex Olson and Travis Lansberry, along with two Brockway miscues resulted in the four runs crossing home plate to tie the score at 4-4.

The Rovers would score the game winner in the bottom of the fourth with some controversy thrown in.

With Rover Brett Carr at third base and Jake Foradori at second base and two outs, Cody Jose hit a ground ball into the hole at shortstop.

Tide shortstop Tanner Elensky’s only play was to try to throw to third base and get the runner from second base (Foradori) for the final out, which he did.

However the runner from third base (B. Carr) broke for home with the potential go-ahead run.

After the third out was recorded, it was decided the run did not score from third; but an ensuing umpire’s conference was briefly held that ended up overturning the initial call that allowed B. Carr to score the game winner.

Mike Martino had two hits for the Rovers in the win, who are now 8-4 on the year.

With the split the Tide are currently 7-9.

Tide coach Denny Johns spoke afterwards about both games, saying, “In the first game we did just enough to pull out the win. Our pitchers were in trouble every inning but somehow we found a way to work out of a lot of jams. And in the second game I thought A. J. (Bloom) worked hard coming off of just three days rest while Travis (Lansberry) gave us three very effective innings in relief. But we just lacked getting timely hits in the second game that cost us a good chance to win.”

The Tide travel to Harmony on Tuesday to play the Owls in Moshannon Valley League (MVL) action at 4:30 pm. Curwensville is unbeaten in MVL play at 3-0 and can wrap up the 2014 championship with a win.